Fail Blog?

Well, I had a heck of a day today.  First, I asked absolutely every person I know, (and even some that I didn't!) where around here I could find venison.   I googled it to no success.  No one I talked to seemed to know anywhere to go to buy it.  I tried calling some hunters clubs, they were closed.  I even tried calling the FOP (at my Mom's request, she said they usually have a "game" dinner every friday) but they were closed as well.  Finally, I stopped by a local meat market and, while they didn't carry venison, the guy behind the counter said that he could order it for me.  Here's the catch though, it's like $20 a pound!  WHOA!!!  There's just no way I can afford that, I'm not even sure how much I'd need?!  So, while I was REALLY looking forward to finally trying venison, it looks like that's not gonna happen. :( 

Onto the wine!  I had to go to four different liquor stores to find a small (slightly over 1 1/2 pints) bottle of  burgundy wine, the other places only had these large jugs of it, and I'm not really a wine drinker.  I've never actually even tasted burgundy wine, so this ought to be pretty neat. :) 

I went to the same exact store that I went to before (Super Stop and Shop) to find my jicama and they did NOT have it! OMG?!  What the heck?! Is jicama a seasonal erm.. root or something?? They also didn't have the dicon, or daikon whatever the spelling is ( I was told it's a Japanese white carrot), they called to a couple other S&S's and they didn't have them either.  My dinner was looking like it did not want to be made. :(   I managed to get the mushrooms at least. heh.

So, all in all I had an absolute horrid time trying to find all of these things, and ended up with barely any of the ingredients I actually wanted.  But, here is what I ended up with:

Protein:  Veal - I've never even eaten veal before, let alone cooked it.  Something about eating a tortured baby cow just never sat right with me, but, anything for my loyal readers! (Heh, yeah, all what, four of you? ;) )

Veggie:  I got turnips (which I've never cooked before) and carrots (regular old carrots, not special ones) and I'm going to dice them, boil them and mash them up with some butter.  It's my Mom's recipe and I know it's good, at least, it is when she makes it!

Other: Burgundy wine and sliced baby portabello mushrooms for the sauce.  It should be exciting seeing if I can actually make a sauce with it.  I'm not much of a drinker at all, and I've never cooked with any type of alcohol.  I also bought some ground cumin, just because I keep hearing it being used all over the Food Network Channel! 

I guess I didn't quite realize how expensive this project of mine was going to be, I'm not so sure I can afford to do all the things I started out wanting to do.   I'm also running out of ideas for ingredients that I can actually find!  I may have to stop trying to find different proteins and just use the normal chicken/beef/pork/turkey ones.  I do know that ones of these weeks I want to try and make my own pasta, right from scratch!  I just have to make sure that I have any appliances that I would need to do that! 


Thanks,
Jazaray